One of the runaway cable hits in recent years has been VH1’s That Metal Show, a production cobbled together with the barest of bones, featuring three regular guys from Jersey (host Eddie Trunk and comedians Don Jamieson and Jim Florentine), sitting around and talking about hard rock and heavy metal. Were it not for the the guys’ unmitigated passion for metal, their profane sincerity and the massive, eye-watering doses of ball-busting (they are from Jersey, after all), the show might have never left the ground. The trio’s lack of pretense and utter likeability however, have inspired the show’s evolution from a late-night placeholder to a bona fide cultural epicenter for hard rock and heavy metal fans across the globe.

I’m not totally sure what just happened. I think someone roofied me and now I’m just passed out somewhere dreaming all of this.

What is your earliest memory?

Being two or three years old and barfing my brains out in the car. Every time I got in a car I would get motion sickness. This one time I got really sick and decided to use my mom’s purse like a barf bag. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I still get really car sick if I’m not driving, but I don’t puke in purses anymore.

Even before I became a Latin major in college (another in a long and colorful string of jackass moves by yours truly), I knew what this sentence meant. It basically means “there’s no accounting for taste.”

From my earliest age, music has been manna for my soul. It has been one of the primary platforms where I relate to the world (and to myself). From my first album (Glen Campbell, “Wichita Lineman”), to my first concert (Aerosmith, 1984, Worcester, MA), through tens of thousands of LPs, cassettes, cds, MP3s, concerts, shows, festivals, mix tapes, radio stations, etc., right up to the last time I played guitar (twenty minutes ago), music has accompanied me in virtually all endeavors, big and small. As I compose this article, I am listening to the album “Wrecking Ball,” by Dead Confederate.

For every trip I’ve taken, there has been a corresponding mix. Every relationship, an artist. I have go-to albums for every mood, and to this day few things excite me more than making a mix for a friend. My tastes, like Tiger Woods’ girlfriends, are all over the place.